


in a galaxy far, far away

by jilliancares



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, First Kiss, M/M, Star Wars AU, i don't think you need to have ever watched star wars to understand this, keith is a sith lord, lance is in the rebel alliance, lance is lowkey a jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:53:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25166506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jilliancares/pseuds/jilliancares
Summary: “Go,” Keith says, and Lance looks down at himself, clad in only a towel. Keith clears his throat. “Right,” he says.And he continues to stand there, his breathing a little loud in his mask.Lance gets the most absurd idea that’s ever graced his mind. It shouldn’t make sense, shouldn’t even be possible, but he thinks…Well, he thinks that Keith is attracted to him.Lance keeps running into Keith, who's definitely supposed to be killing him, but somehow he always lets Lance get away.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 90
Kudos: 634





	in a galaxy far, far away

**Author's Note:**

> i played hard and fast with star wars lore, voltron lore, and lore of my own making (aka, making shit up) and no one can stop me 😤
> 
> this fic is the result of my klance fic giveaway!! the winner was @universllyblue on twitter who prompted this! i might end up doing another one of these in the future, so if that's something that interests you you can follow me on either @jacecares or @bluegaysonly (18+) where you'll find any future fic giveaways that i decide to do!!

“Completely authentic,” Lance says, tapping the jewel hard on the table before him. “See?”

The merchant glares at him, reaching out to take it. Lance pulls his hand back.

“I don’t think so,” he says. “I’ve had merchants take my shit and refuse to give it back before.”

“I’ll have to inspect it first,” the merchant croaks. He’s glaring at Lance, as if Lance isn’t someone to be trusted. Rude.

“Fine,” Lance says, handing over the jewel. It _is_ authentic. It’s just that Lance would rather not be caught with it on his person anytime soon, and those pesky Tusken Raiders are likely already on his trail…

He waits anxiously as the merchant checks it over, pulling out a magnifying glass along with a couple of metal tools. He pokes and prods away at the jewel as Lance grows more and more anxious, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He just needs enough credits to fuel up his ship. He can escape to the nearest planet and refuel there, as long as he gets his money.

“C’mon,” Lance says. “I don’t have all day.”

“Five hundred credits,” the merchant decides.

“ _What_?! This is worth twice that, if not more!”

“Five hundred credits,” the merchant repeats, just as shouting erupts somewhere behind Lance in the market. His eyes widen as he turns, seeing the laser fire of a blaster ( _expensive!_ ) before the appearance of a likely glaring Tusken Raider, not that Lance can tell with that mask he’s wearing. No telling where he got the blaster, either. Those guys usually fight with their pointy sticks or at least some ancient-looking guns.

Spotting Lance, the Raider bowls over a couple Jawas (who explode into furious, high-pitched Jawaese) and races his way. Lance snatches the jewel off the merchant’s table (“Fine! Seven hundred credits!” he shouts) and Lance ignores him, dodging around people as he sprints through the market. Fuck Tatooine, honestly. This planet is ancient and half the people who live here _suck_.

It’s a short but _hot_ run back to his ship, because this entire planet is a stupid dessert with two too many suns. People shout at Lance as he barrels past them, nearly knocking several people over. The Raider behind him doesn’t run through the market with quite the same presence of mind, instead roaring loudly and pushing over anyone in his way.

Things get a little sticky when a second Raider pops up out of nowhere, growling in Lance’s face. He stumbles back a step, directly into the first Raider, and Lance feels a grip on his wrists. He yanks himself away before that grip can tighten and restrain his arms behind his back.

Lance ducks under the new Raider’s legs, surprising even himself when that works and he emerges on the other side. He can’t help a disbelieving backward glance, and his eyes widen when he sees the blaster strapped to the back of the second Raider’s belt. It’s a horrible place to put it, hard to retrieve and easy to steal — and steal it, Lance does.

He just grabs the handle and yanks, his breath trapped somewhere in his throat as he runs with new vigor, because now he’s stolen _two_ things from the Tusken Raiders. A jewel is good money, sure, but a _blaster_? That could earn him a fair amount of credits at any market.

Except…

The Raiders roar behind Lance, infuriated and probably noticing their missing weapon, and that’s when Lance pivots on his heel, raising the blaster. It’s ridiculous, honestly. He’s fought in his ship before, he knows how to use those lasers and blow up enemy ships, but he’s never in his life fired a gun.

It comes naturally, though. His finger fits snug around the trigger as he aims the blaster, and the recoil is a lot less shocking than he would’ve expected. He shoots one of the Tusken Raiders in the shoulder and turns tail before they can retaliate.

It might be nice to keep this weapon.

At the shipyard, Lance spots his ship and breathes a sigh of relief at the sight of that beauty. She’s an oldie but a goodie, having lasted Lance through many chases and laser fights and even the odd asteroid field.

It’s as Lance is swinging himself up into his ship, the dock not yet fully extended, that he spots him. Keith. Sorry, sorry — _Darth Kogane_. It just sounds so pretentious. And through frankly more research than Lance has ever bothered to put himself through before, he discovered that Darth Kogane used to be known as Keith.

You know. Before he was a Sith Lord.

Lance wishes he could feel surprised at seeing him on Tatooine, but it’s unfortunately something he’s come to expect. Seeing Keith show up at the most inopportune times, in the most inopportune places.

It’s what Lance gets, though, for deciding to ally himself with the Rebel Alliance. Everything was so much easier when he didn’t care about the fate of the universe or Jedis or Darth Vadar, for that matter. Back when Lance was just hopping from planet to planet, doing whatever he wanted and stealing more than he could probably handle — _those_ were the good ol’ days.

(Or, at least, that’s what Lance likes to say to himself. He has to admit, though, there’s something that feels great about the Rebellion. Realizing that he’s helping people, that he’s fighting against a tyrant — it’s a good feeling. Makes Lance feel like he has a real purpose in life.)

Just being a part of the Rebellion isn’t enough to set a Sith Lord after you, of course. No one person is worth _that_ much trouble. No, it’s just that the stupid Sith have managed to convince themselves that Lance is somehow a Jedi, and they’ve sicced one of their dogs after him.

Lance flashes Keith a rude gesture, grinning all the while, and disappears inside his ship. He’s just going to have to hope that he can trade this jewel for something good on the next planet. Otherwise he might be grounded for a while.

\--

“You want me to trust you,” Pidge says blandly, glaring at Lance. He grins charmingly.

“We’re old friends!” he says. “You should _already_ trust me.”

She scoffs. “Yeah, right. I’ve lost several bad investments on your ass. It’s not happening.”

“C’mon,” Lance says. “I’m not here on personal business, for once.” He leans in. Lowers his voice. “It’s Rebellion stuff.”

“Which puts me at an even higher risk,” Pidge points out. There’s a robot hovering over her shoulder, probably of her own invention, and Lance eyes it warily. He doesn’t doubt that it likely has its own arsenal of weapons. If he annoys Pidge too much, she could blast him out of her little underground market, old friends or not.

And he _does_ consider them friends, honestly. Sure, he’s made her a few promises that he didn’t exactly fulfill, but what’s that compared to the years that they’ve known each other? The drinks they’ve shared, the missions they’ve lived through? Honestly, it’s thanks to him that her name’s so well-known in the underground market anyway. They’re practically famous for that little stunt they pulled so many years ago, escaping an occupied planet and freeing all the enslaved people there (and flooding the market with forgotten technology from said planet).

That was before Lance was in the Rebel Alliance, of course, and part of that mission had been done for personal gain, but it’d still felt good. And it’d gotten the Rebellion’s eye trained on him, not that he’d known it at the time.

It takes several more minutes of negotiating and promising and begging before Pidge offers her assistance. This time, Lance isn’t asking for her to give him things — he’s asking for her assistance in general. A big mission’s coming up, and they could use someone with brains like hers.

Hunk will be glad that Lance succeeded. Everyone’s been depending on him for a lot of the technical stuff, and although he’s good, it can’t hurt to have someone of equal or higher caliber working beside him.

“Thank you,” Lance says, clasping her hand in both of his, before he rises and begins to make his way back through the market. There are a lot of shady people here, and a good amount that wouldn’t like to see Lance’s face, due to bad tips, fake money, and a fair amount of double-crossing. Hence the hood he’s wearing.

Still, Lance is staying in a hotel here tonight, giving Pidge time to pack up before she can depart with him, and he keeps his head low as he walks through the streets. It’s crawling with Stormtroopers of course, as most planets are these days.

The hotel room isn’t the best, but it’s paid for by the Rebellion, not him, so Lance is absolutely fine with it. He heads to the shower first, because he feels grimy and gross just from being here all day, and the soaps provided feel wonderful on his skin, even if they are cheap hotel stuff.

He emerges from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, a towel wrapped around his waist, when a hand is immediately slapped over his mouth, silencing him. Lance is shoved against the wall, his eyes wide with surprise and fear as he stares into the hooded costume of Darth Kogane, its glowing lights practically glaring at him as he stands there frozen in fear.

Keith raises the hand not currently held over Lance’s face, placing a single finger over where his mouth likely is beneath that mask. The universal sign to shut up and be quiet.

Lance glares at Keith, fully prepared to fight back and make a fit, when there comes a loud rapping on the door.

“Nothing in here,” Keith reports, his voice sounding distorted through the mask as always, and Lance can only blink in surprise.

“Roger,” says whoever’s on the other side. Keith keeps him there for another moment, still silencing him as the footsteps outside the door recede, before he finally steps away.

Lance can only gape at him.

“We know you’re here,” Keith says. “You better flee the planet before they find you.”

“But…” Lance says, because it doesn’t make sense. Keith _already_ found him. He should be dead!

“Go,” Keith says, and Lance looks down at himself, clad in only a towel. Keith clears his throat. “Right,” he says.

And he continues to stand there, his breathing a little loud in his mask.

Lance gets the most absurd idea that’s ever graced his mind. It shouldn’t make sense, shouldn’t even be possible, but he thinks…

Well, he thinks that Keith is attracted to him.

“You just gonna stand there while I get changed?” Lance teases, and he really shouldn’t test his luck like this. He has no idea why Keith’s letting him go, why he protected Lance and warned him, but Lance can’t help it.

His greatest weapon is his mouth, honestly. Sure, the blaster’s nice and all, and his ship, Blue, is his home as much as a ship and a weapon, but his mouth has saved him on more occasions than any other. He’s talked his way out of a lot of problems, using taunts, sarcasm, and of course, a whole lot of flirting.

It just comes naturally. He can’t help it.

“Sorry,” Keith chokes out, and he turns around, as if he forgot that you shouldn’t put your back to your enemy. Lance bets his face is red under that mask. For the first time, he wonders what he looks like under there.

He’s different from the other Sith Lords, that way. Most of them just wear a hood. Hell, Darth Vadar is the only other guy Lance knows of that wears a mask, though he knows from pictures that it doesn’t look anything like Keith’s mask, with the glowing eyeholes and stripes on the cheeks. Plus, Darth Vadar’s outfit isn’t all skintight like Keith’s is. At first glance, Lance might not even think that Keith was a Sith Lord.

And Lance _knows_ that people have defected from the Empire before. Hell, he knows an ex-Stormtrooper — Shiro — who’s one of the nicest guys Lance has ever met. It wasn’t his fault he was raised in that shitty situation, either one of the thousands of clones or captured at birth, something that he’ll probably never know for sure.

But Lance has never heard of a Sith Lord going rogue. Defecting. Betraying the Empire.

Then again, he’s never heard of a Sith Lord getting as many chances as Keith has to kill someone and not going through with it. Lance bumps into the guy on practically every other planet he lands on, and somehow he always escapes unscathed, never run-through with that lightsaber that hangs from Keith’s waist. Maybe even Lance isn’t that lucky — maybe he just has someone looking out for him. Someone who he thought was his enemy.

Not letting down his guard completely, Lance grabs his clothes and tosses his towel over Keith’s shoulder as he dresses. Keith stiffens immediately, likely realizing that Lance is, in fact, now naked behind him.

Once dressed, his belt cinched around his waist and his blaster sheathed at his side, Lance plants a hand on Keith’s free shoulder.

“Thanks for the save,” he says, his lips pressed against Keith’s ear, because he can’t help it, and then he leaves. He climbs straight out the window, because the halls of the hotel are likely swarming with Stormtroopers or droids or whatever other minions Keith has with him, and the streets seem a far safer option at the moment.

And then Lance heads straight back to the underground market, having to break the news to Pidge that she doesn’t have quite as much time to pack as she thought.

\--

Lance doesn’t like to be in anyone’s debt. He _especially_ doesn’t like to be in his enemy’s debt.

It’s not like Lance is going to find some way to warn Keith before any of their big missions go down — he’s not stupid enough to tell him to avoid being on the Death Star or anything like that — but he promises himself that if the chance arises, he’ll save Keith’s skin just like Keith saved his. Just to even the playing field, of course.

And the chance does arrive, not too long after their most recent meeting. Lance is off on a simple mission with his friends. A supply run that they were given, not from Princess Leia herself, but passed down through the chain of command. Lance has never even met the princess.

Princess Allura, on the other hand, Lance has met. Much like Leia, her planet was destroyed, although that happened years before Alderaan was blown to bits. Years before the first Death Star was destroyed.

Though she doesn’t look it, Allura is thousands of years old, along with her uncle Coran, though he’s back at the base right now. And though her planet was destroyed, it wasn’t by the order of some maniac with a terrifying death ray. No, her planet was consumed by some ancient, now-extinct creature called a Weblum. Apparently, the things used to eat planets in order to survive.

Sometimes, Lance is glad for the era he was born in, though he can’t imagine that an evil Empire is all that much better than a planet-eating species.

“Yuck,” Allura says, much to Pidge’s amusement, as she steps carefully around a sizzling pile of… _something_.

This definitely isn’t the cleanest planet they’ve ever been on, but it has its perks. Namely, the supplies they need.

Rover — Pidge’s robot built out of scavenged bits of R2s — beeps merrily and swirls around Allura’s head, apparently entertained by Allura’s disgust. Makes sense, Lance thinks. Pidge _did_ built it, after all.

“I just don’t see how we’re supposed to find the trader,” Shiro says, looking around carefully. The problem isn’t that the planet is relatively empty — they’ve had missions like that before, which rely a lot on tracking and the occasional help of some sort of device made by Hunk and Pidge — but the exact opposite. This planet is so crowded that it’s overwhelming with people, and they don’t have much to go on description-wise. Honestly, their instructions were that the trader would recognize _them_. How backwards is that?

“I guess we should split up,” Lance says. “Might have more of a chance to be spotted that way.”

“Unless the guy isn’t paying attention,” Hunk points out. “Or is trading with someone else. He could easily miss us.”

“Guess we’ll be wandering around for a while,” Shiro sighs. They make a sort of shoddy plan, wherein they’ll wander about the _miles-long_ market and eventually meet back up here, when the first moon hits the horizon.

Lance sets off down a side street immediately, because there’s no telling where the trader will be and he might as well get a good look at every inch of the market if he can. You never know what kind of treasures you might stumble across on accident.

It’s only about an hour later, after Lance has grown bored and taken to dragging his feet, hoping some random person will come up to him and claim they know him, when he sees him.

Keith.

Lance wouldn’t have known it was Keith at first glance, either. He’s clearly acting undercover for some reason, his face not hidden behind his mask for once, and — wow. Just wow.

Anyone who hides under a mask all the time has no right being that attractive.

But Lance can tell it’s him. The rest of his outfit’s the same without his mask, and though no one else likely realizes that they’re haggling with a Sith Lord, they _do_ realize that they’re haggling with an amateur.

“It’s not for sale!” Keith snaps. His voice is different without the mask. Not as deep, but gravellier. It makes Lance weak in the knees, for some stupid reason, and now he’s imagining _that_ face staring at him from under the mask not too long ago, flushed as his eyes darted helplessly around, Lance standing in a towel before him.

“Everything in the market is for sale,” the vendor says. He’s grinning a scary-looking grin, and the guy looks downright greasy. As dirty as the market around him.

“Back off or you’ll regret it,” Keith growls. His hand is clenched around a glowing knife. Somehow, Lance hasn’t seen it before, but he knows without a doubt that that’s what the vendor’s trying to buy from him. It’s a pretty knife.

“Give it here or _you’ll_ regret it,” the vendor snarls. Lance decides to step in before it’s too late.

He walks right up to them, without a care in the world, and slings his arm around Keith’s shoulders. While Keith’s still standing there in shock, Lance deftly plucks the knife out of his hand.

“Thanks for holding onto this for me, babe,” he says, twirling it expertly between his fingers. Did Lance say his greatest weapon was his mouth? Because he’s also pretty skilled with his hands. If you know what he means. “I knew I could trust you.” And then, more to unsettle Keith than to convince the vendor, he presses a kiss to Keith’s cheek.

The vendor turns his glare onto Lance. “He was just selling that to me.”

Keith opens his mouth to argue, every inch of his face lined with fury, and Lance laughs.

“That’s my Keith! Always trying to get rid of my weapons.” He leans in conspiratorially. “He thinks I don’t need weapons. Says _he_ can protect _me_.” Lance snorts, as if the very notion is preposterous. The vendor doesn’t look amused.

“Three hundred credits,” he says. “That’s as much as I’ll offer.”

“One hundred,” Lance says, holding the knife out to the vendor. Keith stiffens against Lance’s side, probably actually debating killing Lance for once, when the vendor recoils.

“The fuck?” he says.

“Take it, I don’t want it,” Lance says. “It’s more trouble than it’s worth.” He waggles the knife enticingly. The vendor takes a step back.

“What’s wrong with it?” he growls.

“Nothing!” Lance says unconvincingly. “Absolutely nothing at all. Just take it. I don’t even like it that much.”

“Yeah, right,” the vendor scoffs. “Tell me what’s wrong with it or I’ll kill you where you stand.”

Lance sighs, put-upon, and tucks the knife into his belt. “It’s cursed,” he says reluctantly. “But not, like, super cursed! Just a little, I swear! You won’t even notice. Fifty credits?”

“Fuck off,” the vendor snaps. “Get out of my sight. You’re wasting my time.”

“Dammit,” Lance sighs. He squeezes Keith comfortingly. “You did your best.” And then he leads Keith down the street, well out of the vendor’s view, before letting him go, procuring the knife from his belt. “What’s so special about this thing, anyway?” he says, holding it out.

Keith takes it almost reluctantly. Disbelieving. “Nothing,” he says finally. “It belonged to my mother.”

“Well, it’s a pretty knife,” Lance says. “You probably shouldn’t go flaunting the things you have in a place like this. I’ve pickpocket people far scarier than you.”

Keith places the knife inside a pocket in his jacket. He stands there for a moment. “Thank you,” he says. “For, um… yeah.”

“Eloquent,” Lance teases. “That’s what I’ve always loved about you.” See, it’s funny because Keith has never talked much. Not to Lance, at least. Get it?

“Right,” Keith says. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself.

“Whelp,” Lance says. “Gotta run. See you on the flip side!” He really _does_ run. Just to get out of view of Keith, and then to take a few unneeded turns and backtrack a bit, just to make sure he loses him if he happens to be following Lance. Sure, Keith’s helped him out before, and he didn’t try to kill Lance today, but he isn’t so sure that same would go for Lance’s friends. He has no idea what’s up with Keith, no idea what side he’s _really_ on, but he isn’t willing to try anything.

Lance loses track of time, and he doesn’t get back to their meeting place until the _third_ moon is on the horizon, which Allura snaps at him for. But Hunk managed to find the trader, and he has a big, burlap sack on his back, filled with all the shit they need, and everyone’s eager to get out of here. Allura’s shoes are covered in gunk, which unfortunately she’ll probably track all over inside of Blue.

Well. At least some things never change.

\--

After the Death Star 2.0 is blown up, Lance is, unsurprisingly, back to being a free agent of chaos.

A lot’s going on, honestly. The New Republic is in its beginning stages. People all over the universe are being freed from leftover Empire control. A lot of planets are in shambles and others are thriving.

Some Rebels are helping with the building of the New Republic and its leadership system, but plenty of them have returned to their ways of life, to their home planets. Pidge is once again in charge of an underground market. Shiro and Allura are tagging along with the formation of the New Republic, not having anywhere else to go. Hunk’s back to creating ships, because he’s a killer engineer, and Lance is roaming the universe.

A nomad with an empty stomach in search of a warm meal. A traveler with loose pockets just begging to be filled with gold. He’s the person he always was, basically.

He’s on a tiny, thriving moon when Keith finds him. And, much like that planet where Keith swooped in and saved his ass, Lance is totally not suspecting him.

He’s a little low on funds at the moment, so instead of a nice hotel room with a shower and a bed, he’s bunking it out on Blue. There’s a little cot in the back, so it’s not all bad, plus this ship has always been like his home anyway.

But one moment, he’s just lying there in his cot, a book propped open on his knees as he begins to doze off, and the next moment, he hears the dock extending.

See, Blue’s a bit old, in terms of ships. And while she’s great in many aspects, she doesn’t exactly have a locking function.

Okay, what Lance is saying is that anyone can get in at any time, not that he’s ever mentioned that to his friends. They’d surely string him up to dry for putting them in danger like that. On multiple occasions. At multiple hostile planets.

Lance is on his feet with his blaster aimed at the door within seconds. When it opens, his finger twitches on the trigger, none of his mental facilities suggesting even for a second to pull that trigger.

“ _Keith_?” he says. And then, once he has his wits about him again: “Come to finish me off?”

Keith flinches. “Uh, actually. I had nowhere else to go.”

He’s not holding his knife, nor is he brandishing his lightsaber, so Lance lowers his gun. Really gets a good look at him.

Keith looks tired, sure, but they all do. It was a long war. A long fight. And sleep doesn’t always come easy after something like that.

Plus, more than tired, Keith looks hopeful. He really had nowhere else to go? He thought of _Lance_ to come to, of all people?

It’s a stupid idea, probably. To invite Keith inside. To let his guard down. But Lance just sighs, because the war is over and he’s tired of fighting.

“Come sit down,” he says, and Keith — still wearing that stupid, glowing outfit, though thankfully barefaced once again — takes a seat right on Lance’s bed. Not even on the edge, all polite and distant, but curled up against the wall, his knees hugged to his chest. Lance joins him on the bed, though he sticks to the edge.

“So, like,” Lance begins, his voice sounding too loud in the quiet of his ship. “You evil, or…?”

Surprising Lance, Keith snorts. “No,” he says. “Everyone always says that Jedi can go to the Dark side. I was raised that way, though. And they never mentioned that it was possible to go to the Light.”

“But you did,” Lance says. It’s not a question.

Keith shrugs. “I hated it there,” he explains. “All of it. When I first heard about the Rebel Alliance, I was enraptured. And when they gave me you as my mission…”

“You were enraptured,” Lance leers, waggling his eyebrows. Keith flushes.

“It wasn’t a bad mission,” he surmises.

“You _liked_ hunting me around the galaxy!”

“I never would’ve hurt you,” Keith says, as if that shit wasn’t obvious.

“Really? The saving my life and failing to capture me at every turn said otherwise,” Lance jokes, and Keith turns his red face downward.

“I escaped when I got the chance,” Keith said. He clears his throat. “A little while before we met at that market, actually.”

“Ah, where you showed your hand at your horrible haggling skills.”

Keith glowers. “I don’t know how you do it,” he grumbles.

“I’ll teach you,” Lance blurts, without even thinking. Here Keith is, someone who used to be his enemy, someone who was definitely at one point on the Dark side, and Lance is, for lack of a better word, enraptured by him. He wants more to do with him. Everything to do with him.

He was always fascinated by Keith, of course. He just never really thought anything of it. _Definitely_ never thought anything could come of it.

Except now Keith is here, sitting on his bed, inside Lance’s ship. Here he is, with nowhere else to go, with no more need to run. And Lance, either through misplaced trust or insane gullibility, has extended a hand.

“Really?” Keith says.

“You’ll learn as we go,” Lance says.

Keith is silent for a minute. Just sitting there, staring at his knees. “So, you mean… I can come with you?”

“Unless you have somewhere better to be,” Lance says. He turns his body, planting his head on the pillows and stretching out along the bed, trapping Keith against the wall. “Only got one bed though, so you can share or camp out on the floor.”

Keith’s blush refuses to leave his face. Carefully, he stretches out beside Lance, not a single part of their bodies touching. His eyes dart to Lance’s and then away again, back to the ceiling above them.

“You kissed me,” Keith blurts out, staring hard at the ceiling. “When we were at the market.”

“It was a peck,” Lance says. “And it was on your cheek. Hardly anyone would call that a kiss.”

“Oh.”

“You liked it?” Lance says.

“Well, I thought—”

“You liked it?” Lance repeats, interrupting him.

Keith nods, ever so slightly. And Lance isn’t an idiot, okay? He can take a hint. He can find the clues and put them together, of Keith saving Lance — staring at him in his towel. Of him ditching the Empire, almost immediately after. Of him finding Lance, lightyears away, with nowhere else to go. Of him, after all of that, bringing up the fact that Lance pecked him on the cheek.

And so Lance rolls swiftly onto his side, plants one hand on the side of Keith’s face, and tilts it ever so slightly. The next moment, his lips are on Keith’s, and Keith’s frozen underneath him until Lance moves his lips, just barely, at which point he gasps and both his hands ball up in the material of Lance’s shirt, holding him as close and tight as possible.

“Lance,” he gasps, and Lance bursts out laughing, which makes Keith flinch away, his eyes wide.

“Sorry!” Lance says immediately. “It’s just — I was never sure if you knew my name or not.”

Keith gapes at him. “Of course I knew your name. You were my mission.”

“It doesn’t seem that far-fetched,” Lance points out. “You could’ve very easily been given my description. And it’s not like I ever introduced myself.”

“I know your name,” Keith huffs, surly, and so Lance kisses him again, just to get his eyebrows to unfurrow.

Tomorrow, he’ll take Keith out to the markets and teach him how to haggle. Once he’s good enough, they’ll swing by Pidge’s planet, because Pidge is probably the hardest person to haggle with in the universe, and it’ll be hilarious to watch Keith try to get anything out of her.

After that… well, there’s a whole galaxy out there for them. Lance figures they’ll just take it one step at a time. A couple nomads with no real destination in mind.


End file.
